


Carry On

by BleedingInk



Category: Supernatural
Genre: F/M, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-01
Updated: 2020-09-01
Packaged: 2021-03-06 14:35:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,882
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26240476
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BleedingInk/pseuds/BleedingInk
Summary: Nine years ago to the day, the world had changed forever, and only a handful of people knew exactly how much and what it’d cost.
Relationships: Castiel/Meg Masters
Comments: 5
Kudos: 21





	Carry On

**Author's Note:**

> This was written as an accompanying piece to a fanart commissioned by my good friend.

Meg stirred awake.

Something was wrong. In her half-asleep state, she couldn’t tell exactly what it was, but the feeling roused in the back of her mind and before she could register it consciously, she already had her hand underneath her pillow, her fingers tightening around the hilt of the angel blade.

When she opened her eyes, though, she realized that she was alone in the room.

And that was precisely what was wrong.

The other side of the bed was empty and cold. The sheets were rumpled and there was a hollow on the pillow where Castiel’s head had been lying, perhaps moments before. Clutching the sheets around her body, she peered over the edge of the bed to notice that the clothes she had hastily helped him discard the night before were not on the floor anymore.

“Where did you go, Clarence?” she muttered to herself, leaving the blade on the night table.

It was, as Castiel kept reminding her, mostly a placebo to keep it at hand. There were no angels hunting them anymore and the demons that still roamed the Earth had long lost their interest for Meg. In that quiet neighborhood in Lawrence, Kansas, no one suspected who they were: just a normal human couple living with their teenage son. Life had been quiet for a while.

Meg never thought she’d grown to appreciate the quiet and she still wasn’t sure she was used to it, but she had to admit that falling asleep in Castiel’s arms every single night had its perks. She didn’t really need to sleep, just like she didn’t really need to eat or drink, but she did so anyway.

“We’re stuck here forever. We might as well enjoy all the earthly pleasures like gluttony and sloth, no?” she’d told Castiel once. “I mean, I already know you’re partial to lust…”

He’d laughed at that and Meg had experienced a soft sense of pride for it. He didn’t laugh a lot, so every time she managed to get a chuckle out of him was a victory.

She waved her hand and her clothes jumped from the floor to the bed. Her wheelchair rolled next to the mattress out of its own volition, ready for her the moment she was done getting dressed. She hid the angel blade inside of her sleeve. Out of habit, more than anything.

With another surge of power, she was downstairs. Jack sat in the kitchen in his pajamas, lazily munching on a bowl of cereals. He raised his eyes at her.

“Good morning.”

“Long night, kid?”

“I was reading a treaty on the cycle of reproduction of ghouls and… you don’t care,” he realized immediately after Meg crooked an eyebrow. “Sorry.”

“I’m sure it was fascinating,” Meg replied, hoping not to sound particularly sarcastic. “Have you seen your dad?”

“He left early,” Jack said, rubbing his eye. “He asked me to come with him, but I said I’m too tired. I’ll go later.”

“Go where?” Meg asked, frowning.

Jack stared at her for a moment, as if he wasn’t sure if she was asking that seriously.

“You remember what day it is, don’t you?”

“Of course I do. It’s…” She had to think about it for a second. “Thursday?”

Jack tilted his head.

“I mean… yes, but that’s not what I mean. It’s September 13th.”

As soon as he said it, Castiel’s absence made a lot more sense. She knew instantly where he’d gone.

“Oh,” she mumbled. “Right.”

“Yeah. That’s… why I couldn’t sleep last night,” Jack added. He stayed silent for a moment, reflecting. “Do you think it’ll ever stop hurting?”

Meg didn’t know what to even answer to that. She was a demon. She was used to pain, to anger, to sorrow. She had been carrying them with her for thousands of years. Castiel, for even longer than that. Compared to them, Jack was but a child, a baby.

And she wasn’t sure that telling him it got easier was entirely the truth.

“I think pain has a bad reputation,” she told him. “It serves to remind us we’re still here. You shouldn’t wish it away.”

Jack thought about this answer, and then nodded, like it made more sense to him than it did to Meg herself.

“Anyway, I’m gonna go catch up with him,” she said. “We can go out to do something fun afterwards, okay?”

“Okay,” Jack said. He sounded like he had something else to say, so Meg waited. “I think it’s good that you’re here, Meg. I never told you that. But I think it’s good, that you’re here for him.”

It was so strange. They had lived in the same house all that time and they’d never had a conversation like that before. She supposed that, being deathless as they were, it really didn’t matter if they said those things out loud all the time. They knew. And if they didn’t know, they could always say them later.

What a strange little family they were.

“I try,” she said, with a shrug. “See you later, kid.”

She disappeared from their home and teleported right outside the cemetery gates. She could have gone inside, showed up right next to where she knew he would be, but she wanted to give him time to compose himself. Let him know she was coming with the soft creaking of her chair and the crunching of the dry leaves under her wheels.

Besides, it was nice there. Someone else might have found that morbid, but she was a demon. She was allowed to indulge in morbid thoughts. She liked the quiet, the dignified aspect of the graves, the long green paths surrounded by yellowing trees. The air smelled like fresh earth and the flowers left at the headstones. She took a moment to take it all in before she turned to search for her angel.

Castiel sat in front of the grave, his tan trench coat spread on the ground around him. He looked so tired and sad as he stared at the headstone in front of him that Meg’s heart shrunk a little.

She didn’t like to see him that way. At the same time, she knew there was little they could do about it. The pain was a reminder, yes, but it was also an anchor. Without his grief, without a part of him always having present what he’d lost, Jack and Meg would lose him to the Empty forever.

She was thankful for the pain. But she wished it wasn’t necessary sometimes.

She parked her wheelchair behind him and said nothing for a moment, respecting his silence. The headstone looked well cared for, free of weeds and moss, so the big white letters could be read with clarity:

_Sam and Dean Winchester._

_Heroes._

Nine years ago to the day, the world had changed forever, and only a handful of people knew exactly how much and what it’d cost. Not many knew the saviors of humanity rested in that little patch of land in that forgotten small town.

In lieu of flowers, Castiel had brought a whiskey bottle and set two shots in front of the stone.

“Drinking with your buddies?” she asked.

Castiel didn’t move or react to the sound of her voice at first. He just kept looking at the gravestone, like he was pondering something.

“Do you think I should have added something more to it?” he asked, after several minutes of silence. “It seems… so little. For everything they gave.”

In Meg’s opinion, it was enough. Castiel didn’t need to do any of what he’d done: come back for the bodies, give them the appropriate hunter’s pyre, gather the ashes and bury them there. He’d brought them home for the last time, because he felt that was the least he could do for them.

Even though he had given them so much leading to the battle that had taken Sam and Dean Winchester away forever.

They had never been Meg’s favorite people and she doubted that, even if they had survived, they would have grown to become friends. But she had to give credit where it was due: it had been pretty brave of them to face God and win. To go out in their exact terms. She respected that.

And she respected Castiel’s grief.

“I think they wouldn’t have cared,” she told him. “I don’t think they believed anyone was going to remember them, much less give them a proper grave.”

“I remember them,” Castiel said. “I’ll always remember them. Even when the world moves on and they’re nothing but a legend, I…”

His voice broke down and his shoulders slumped.

Meg wasn’t good with words. She didn’t know what to say to him, she didn’t know how to make that moment better. So she didn’t even try. Instead, she rolled her chair forwards and put her arms around Castiel’s neck, pulling him back a little so his head would rest against her knees.

“I know you will,” she whispered. “I know.”

Hearing an angel cry was a harrowing experience. There was something in the air around them, in the energy they carried with themselves that made one think it just wasn’t right that something so pure, something made out of so much light should cry.

And those weren’t even the angels that Meg loved.

Castiel sobbed in the most dignified manner. He didn’t scream, he didn’t throw himself on the ground or covered his face with his hands. He simply sat there, letting the tears stream down his face, barely even making a sound. Meg had been through hell, several times, in fact, and seeing him suffer was still the hardest form of torture.

She kissed the top of his head as his crying receded, like a summer storm blown away by the wind.

“I think you went above and beyond, Castiel,” she said, pronouncing his name softly, like a whisper, like a secret. “You always did for them.”

“I tried,” he muttered. “I miss them. Sam’s intelligence and gentleness. Dean’s tenacity and humor. It’s… strange. I always knew that this is how it was going to end, that one day they would be gone and I’d still be here, alone. But it still hurts.”

Meg pressed Castiel tighter against herself, running her hands through his hair.

“You’re not alone, though. You have the kid. And me. You’re here with us.”

Was it selfish she was happy about that? That they were there and they were together and it seemed like that was going to be the case for a long, long time? Well, she was a selfish creature. Maybe she needed to be, to pull Castiel out of his grief when it was too overwhelming even for him.

And maybe he was a little selfish too. Maybe those painful memories, that grief he held so close to his chest, was a way to not have to let go of her, of Jack, of this Earth he’d sacrificed so much to see saved and free.

She didn’t ask him that and he wouldn’t tell her. Instead, he grabbed her hand and placed a kiss on the inside of her palm.

“Yes. We’re here,” he said, closing his eyes to sink into her embrace. “And that’s more than enough.”


End file.
